Paling developed a scale for helping put the risks of different events into perspective.
"Home Base" refers to the risk of serious accidental death or injury in our home. Since most people accept this level of risk and are unwilling to make changes to further reduce this risk, this is considered a reasonable baseline.
Paling risk number =
= LOG10(1,000,000) - LOG10(risk denominator) =
= 6 - LOG10(risk denominator)
risk denominator =
= 10^(6 - (Paling risk number))
|
Risk |
Paling Risk Number |
Term |
|
1 in 1 |
+6 |
massive risk |
|
1 in 10 |
+5 |
high risk |
|
1 in 100 |
+4 |
moderate risk |
|
1 in 1,000 |
+3 |
low risk |
|
1 in 10,000 |
+2 |
very low risk |
|
1 in 100,000 |
+1 |
"home base" |
|
1 in 1,000,000 |
0 |
"home base" |
|
1 in 10,000,000 |
-1 |
remote risk |
|
1 in 100,000,000 |
-2 |
very remote risk |
|
1 in 1,000,000,000 |
-3 |
|
|
1 in 10,000,000,000 |
-4 |
miniscule risk |
|
1 in 100,000,000,000 |
-5 |
|
|
1 in 1,000,000,000,000 |
-6 |
extremely miniscule risk |
As shown in Stalling and Paling, the scale can be used to display the risk for various events that might occur for a specific operation (death from anesthesia, surgical site infection, massive hemorrhage, injury to other organs, organ failure, etc.)
